Farewell to the Peters

Tuesday. That means it’s garbage day here at Vista Point. Yippee! Okay, it’s not THAT special — we have TWO garbage days a week here.

Superstition Panorama
After breakfast we got our bike shorts on and went for a ride around our ‘loop’. Another beautiful day here. I had to stop on the way back (after climbing the ‘big’ hill!) to take a photo of ‘our’ mountain. Ever since we first came to Gold Canyon 4 years ago, Superstition Mountain has been a landmark for us. And for prairie folks like us, who really don’t know anything at all about a mountain on the horizon, we’ve come to love and appreciate our mountain. Dinosaur Golf at SuperstitionNo matter how mixed up and crazy some of the little bays and cul de sacs here are, or which hole you’re on at the golf course, you can always orient yourself by just looking up to Superstition, from whence cometh our sense of direction.

When we got home Sue took out the shears from the garage and proceeded to give the big bougainvillaea bush on our front yard a haircut. Too many ‘dead’ branches. Sue had gotten permission from the owners to do this. Now our big garbage bin, which had just been emptied, is full again — with thorny branches. Good thing Friday is another Garbage Day.

After lunch Sue went to the pool to read. I did some work on the computer and made a couple of phone calls. I also got the leaf-blower out and cleaned off our putting green in the backyard. I putted for a bit — still can’t get 4 in a row in.

We had an early supper and then went to Ed and Val’s for 6:00pm. In the spirit of the season, they greeted us with a couple of Christmas hampers — all the leftovers from their fridge, etc. They are coming back at the end of January, so I guess they didn’t really need to pack more than the one little suitcase they put in the van. We headed to the Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix and dropped them off at the WestJet gate. Said goodbye and Merry Christmas.

We tjriesled our way down to the IKEA store in Tempe on the way home. We were looking for some chair cushions for our kitchen chairs at the house. Man, that is a bizarre system of so-called store layout those Swedes have invented:  winding and circling and following arrows on the floor like a giant game board for shoppers. But I guess it works. We found our cushions alright, but then followed that maze around most of two floors towards the exit, all the while picking up more things that we didn’t know we needed! We finally managed to find the checkouts at the end, where we quietly stood in a long hardly-moving line for the final half hour before making our escape. The 35-mile drive home was less complicated and way less stressful.

At home, we snacked on more of that homemade caramel popcorn and watched the news.